Nathan

By Rodney Patrick

Ron Bartlett, Blaine Garrett and Nate Kellerman have just graduated from high school.
While they spend their last evening together a series of events is set in motion that has them hop-scotching through nearly four decades on a roller coaster ride of hi-tech violence, robbery and vigalantie justice.
The expanding list of characters includes an eccentric Professor, his cold and calculating ultra military security chief, an unheralded retiring Sherrifs Detective and an entire box of seemingly unsolvable cases that have plauged his entire career.
Vividly described and taking place in the southeastern Michigan communities of Ann Arbors University of Michigan and Ypsilantis sprawling auto factories the local histories are drawn on to blend into the plot in a way that will have readers looking up old newspaper articles to see what's real and what's supposidly fiction.
The pages practicaly turn themselves all the way to the bittersweet end and will leave the reader hungering for a part two....

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rodney Patrick
• Release date: Jul 19, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465824295

Book preview

Prologue

July, 1975

The glow from the flames lit his face as he turned in his seat, looking out the back window of the fishtailing station wagon. He could see both of his best friends in the light that was warm even at this distance and dropping his head lower, he could see how the whole area was illuminated by the roiling flames billowing from the car that they had just blown up. Fuck man, lookit’ that. Nate, the lone occupant of the back seat exclaimed in wonder. Ron dropped his head farther, to an even more uncomfortably contorted position to take in what Nate was seeing.

There, suspended evilly above the leaping flames, he saw what had grabbed his long time friends attention. A huge mushroom cloud, at least twenty yards in diameter, broadcast the news that there had just been an explosion at the township landfill. Not a place that usually hosted events like this, the landfill had suited their purpose tonight quite well. They’d had a desperate need to dispose of some very, very incriminating evidence, namely the bloodied loser of a recent gun fight that laid in the trunk of that car.

Ron Bartlett, sitting on the passenger side of the smooth riding getaway car, looked from Nate Kellerman, in the back seat, to Blaine Garrett, doing duty as the getaway driver. More than best friends these guys, just out of high school were hand-picked by fate to be family long ago, when they were just small kids. A love, trust and devotion to each other that had absolutely no boundaries. More than the shirt off their back, each one of them would surrender their entire earthly possessions, or anyone else’s, for that matter, to protect or support the others. Brothers to the very end. An end which may certainly have been decided tonight.

Twisting himself around in the seat again, he looked up at the demonic cloud. He could almost imagine that cloud hanging there forever, becoming the smoky prison that would never release them for the rest of time. Their past was forever gone and now their future seemed to hang beneath that very cloud. Staring back as the scene grew smaller and smaller, he wished he could be someplace else, anyplace else...far away.

Chapter 1

July, nineteen seventy five. Hot sticky summer. Groggy drunken heads. This was just a replay of every other day in the lives of these three guys. They’d been together as friends and sometimes accomplices through most of their youth. This evening they were saying goodbye and good luck to one of their group, and probably all to each other . Off to the US Navy for Blaine. He claimed to have given this a lot of thought but the other two of the longtime group felt more likely that the influence was his fiancée’ Melanie. She wanted him away from the other two at nearly any cost. Adopted at four by his already elderly great aunt and her equally aged husband he had always maintained a perfect facade.

Three point eight GPA, captain of the swim team, valedictorian, engaged to the class president and captain of the state champion cheerleading squad. She didn’t subscribe to their Bitches after brothers policy. No siree, not one fucking bit. She thought that pressing his head against her firm little tummy, she could lead him where ever she wanted, including, The Aisle. She never did catch the winks and knowing nod’s the guy’s would exchange during her demonstrations of power.

The other two knew the real Blaine. Over the years through their chaotic anti social night lives’ he had shown again and again how he struggled to contain the raging alter ego. A few time’s he had lost control during the altercations that sometimes erupted at party’s or bars and the level of violence he was capable of seemed to have no boundaries.

Things needed to change anyway, Ron considered. Nate had been caught up in a lot of shit lately too, and was more than likely going to do some time for his last negative Law Enforcement interaction .

Pondering their early years he recalled that they all had some run ins with cop’s. But Nate , five eleven , about a hundred and seventy pounds , blonde hair to his shoulders, big blue eyes the girls could just swim in and a GPA that matched Blaine‘s, had an absolutely uncanny knack for getting nabbed every time he did something even remotely illegal. Not that beating his ex-girlfriends husband nearly to death wasn’t illegal. Nor had it been some vague law he violated when he shot the sorry fucker in the ass with a 357. magnum as he laid , curled into a fetal position, puking and pissing himself. He truly loved the girl. He was just showing his love that’s all. Just another in a long procession of bad decisions.

Ron had his own plans too. Setting aside money for the last two years or so, he had accumulated enough for his first semester at the University of Michigan, where he’d been accepted but hadn’t had the dough to get started until now.

Each of them seemed to be drifting off in their own way. The inevitable conclusion to a misspent youth. Blaine, the perfect name for the perfect jock, at least in appearance was certain that the end of the Vietnam conflict would open more opportunities for him, as far as schooling in the exploding field of electronics and computers. The physical training particularly interested him. At six feet even and never an ounce above or below two hundred and ten pounds he was the true fighter of the three throughout school. Blue eyes of his own and blonde hair lighter than Nate’s cut in a kind of Dutch Boy on the paint can style. Any of them could start a brawl in the bar, but Blaine was the likely one to be left standing when it was over. Just bring up the hair cut to find out .

Nate, well, his immediate future seemed to be a certainty, three to five in Jackson State Penitentiary. A definite product of his environment. The third son of an alcoholic factory worker, the oldest being an outlaw biker, the second, blessedly escaped by dying of cancer while Nate was barely in grade school. That left Nate to bear the brunt of his father’s anger at the world.

When Nate’s tiny, whisper thin mom was unavailable for the beatings, Nate made a convenient, although unwilling stand in. Nate eventually stepped in on his own to prevent her from being targeted until he moved out at fifteen to live with his cousin and her husband. To them, he was invisible. The result was a lot like a clock spring being released entirely unrestrained, resulting in a return to his old man’s house after his moms merciful death in the fall of nineteen seventy three to administer a punishment nearly equal to all of those his mother had received combined into one.

The old man lost eight teeth, one testicle and had three fingers broken. He’d crawled to his bedroom with Nate kicking him every step and fetched his trusty shootin’ iron from beneath his bed. When he rolled over and pointed it up at a son he’d never known, Nate offered, Go ahead and shoot, cocksucker! Killin’ me ain’t gonna’ end your fuckin’ misery. A few months later, the old man, drunk again, left the road in his ancient Buick, addressing an oak tree at nearly sixty miles an hour. The photos are now used extensively in driver improvement classes state wide although no royalties have ever been received.

Ron’s future was sketchy .The last child and only son out of five , raised by a single mother that had little time to offer encouragement or even observation he had chosen to make Blaine and Nate his family. Somewhere between the build’s of his two friends and carrying his own mop of shaggy blonde hair, six feet tall and a hundred and eighty pounds, he needed money. The most striking difference was his steel grey eyes. Always narrow and always piercing. The oldest of the three by one year, had been held back at the first grade, placing him in the same graduating class, nineteen seventy five, as the other two. He had enough for one semester at U of M and a promise of a job in an off campus private lab, working as assistant doing God knows what, for some eccentric Professor he’d met at the street art fair last year. Some shit about computers and bio processors or something. The guy said if he could up his own first semester’s tuition, he’d see to helping him carry on as needed, whatever that meant. Anyway, he was getting his foot in the door of a University that offered medical training. That had a future. That meant money.

Right now the pressing issue was how to get more drunk with these guy’s without fucking up. Leaving the house now would probably result in nothing good and several scenarios swept through Ron’s mind like a blur. The best of which left him arrested and out of school, Blaine arrested and out of the Navy and Nate arrested leaving Blaine and Ron out the five grand they had coughed up to bond him out while he awaited his trial. Nope he thought, staring down the driveway into the street that wound through the quiet subdivision, Maybe I’ll just blaze up myself and grab some beer. It’s only three blocks. As he was gazing down the driveway, a car slowed to a stop and the driver lowered his head as if to get a better look and he made eye contact with him. An older guy, late forties, early fifties that looked eerily familiar. It was virtually a tunnel vision sensation, watching the man in the car. Squinting to try to see the man more clearly, he saw him move his head from side to side, almost imperceptibly as if reading his mind and telling him not to go. A sweaty chill ran across the top of his shoulders and, as gently as the man had pulled over, he pulled away.

Looking behind himself to see if anyone else had shared his weird experience, Ron found himself alone in the driveway. He walked to the street and looked in the direction the man had gone and again got the same chill when he saw the car rounding the corner and finally go out of sight. Looking back in the other direction he got another kind of chill. There, big as life, was Garci Brown, the man locally known as being able to provide you with any kind or quantity of drug you desired. The three of them had broken into his house last week during a drunken brainstorm and stolen two pounds of very nice red bud from his bedroom closet .

Garci was also known for his quick delivery of violent punishment for people suspected of fucking him over. Although the theft was stupid on their part, Garci was proving that he was no mental match for them. He had his back to Ron and was fishing around in the trunk of his ten year old Lincoln Imperial. He produced a shotgun that had the stock cut off and held it in his right hand, leaning back in and stirring more stuff around.

Ron could see the back end of the gun, covered with filthy friction tape, held loosely in his right hand against his trademark black trench coat. The skull headed walking cane he also carried as a trademark leaned against the rusty bumper. Watching him there he could almost see him strolling across the autumn orange shag carpet in his living room, carrying the cane in one hand and some Fine ass Thai stick. in the other, drawling out the description in his east side Ypsilanti accent.

Breaking into this ass holes house could have been considered a crime of opportunity and here was another opportunity. Ron covered the distance in ten long strides and just as Garci was turning to the sound of running footsteps, he hit him in the mid section , driving him into the cavernous open trunk . The shotgun was jarred from his hand and clattered off the bumper , dropping to the ground just as Ron slammed the trunk lid on the surprised face of the now captive gunman.

Cocksucker, I’m gonna’ kill yur’ fuckin’ ass. Garci bellowed from his new surroundings.

Ron leaned down, wondering what the hell he was going to do with this jerk now, saying, Quiet Garci , you’re gonna’ wake everybody up . Suddenly, there was a loud blast and a strobe like light shone from every rust hole in the back of the big old car. Another blast and another flash followed by another and another. Just as Ron realized that Garci had a second gun in the trunk, and bent to retrieve the dropped shotgun , another blast erupted right in front of his face sent a searing impact into the side of his head.

Fumbling, he grasped the shotgun and turned it to the most recent blast hole and pulled the trigger. An unbelievably loud, thundering boom came from the weapon and he pumped the action, cycling another round into the chamber. He felt a surrealism wash over him and he pulled the trigger, mechanically pumping it again, spinning when he heard the running footsteps behind him.

It was Nate and Blaine running to the fight . Lifelong friends that would never run away. Nate was shouting, What the fuck , man. And then he heard Garci from the trunk, groaning and cursing.

Fuckin’ Garci showed up man, shot me in the head. Ron moaned .

Nate took one look at his friend and snatched the shotgun from his hands and turned to the big car, firing into it as he walked to it. Fuckin’ cocksucker. Fuckin’ cocksucker. Four rounds were left in the shotgun and when he was done there was no more sound from the trunk. The last shot echoed through the houses and everything became silent again. The three friends stood in the street staring at each other, unable to take in what had just happened. Finally, as if just realizing he had been wounded, Ron fell against his friends.

They helped him to the shadows in the driveway. Looking intently at the bleeding wound two inches above his right ear, Nate pressed his hand against it to stop the bleeding and just as quickly yanked his hand back, repulsed. He took out his cigarette lighter and flicked it alight, holding it near the wound. Fuck man, It’s a piece of a bolt. John Wayne. Meaning be tough, he said as he flicked it away with his fingernail .

Ah shit man. Ron said, He was probably tryin’ to shoot out the trunk lock.

None of them noticed the car pulling back up to the corner and then backing away again.

The bleeding slowed quickly and they knew the wound was minor. Now the problem was what to do with dumb ass Garci and his big ugly car? Blaine held the cane in his hand, having snatched it up before they retreated to the dim cover of the driveway. Ron watched it bounce in his hand and thought back to another scene, two years ago when Garci was Between licenses. And had rode up to them at the party store on a sting ray bicycle with the cane laid across the handle bars, trench coat flapping behind him. He’d been sporting a broad grin beneath his snotty moustache that exposed his remaining teeth , grayed from years of crank and smack, Won’t be seeing that again. He thought to himself.

What the fuck are we gonna do? Blaine asked out loud. How’d he fuckin’ know we did it? This is so fucked man.

Calm the fuck down man. Nate ordered. I’ll take his car, you guy’s follow and pick me up, that’s all.

That simply, Nate had stepped up and solved the problem. None of them had ever been involved in anything like this before and the other two were still shaking, but Nate had restored the natural order of things.

Ron feigned resistance at first but they all knew that it was the best idea. It wasn’t going to be dark forever and as morbid as it sounded the fact was that the trunk was probably going to start leaking before long.

Nate looked at Blaine and then at the walking stick, You wanna’ keep that? He asked him. Suddenly the cane seemed to be made of poison and Blaine couldn’t stand to touch it any more. Fuck no! He stammered, thrusting it at Nate. Nate snatched it away and picked up the shotgun from the dusty asphalt, fumbling and dropping his lighter at the same time. Fuck it. Let’s book. He said as he turned and headed to Garci’s car.

Blaine shot into the house and quickly returned with the keys to his Unk’s AMC Matador station wagon. Any sense of intoxication had departed from all of them with the shooting and Ron’s worries from earlier were now moot. Blaine backed out slowly, lights off and pulled up next to Nate. They were both surprised to see Nate with a half burned joint hanging from his mouth and intently tuning the complicated eight track player. Dick head left me a joint for the ride. He shouted over the blaring music when he noticed them and looked up. The gloomy cloud lifted just a bit and Blaine asked if, perhaps, there might be a bit more in there somewhere. A baggie with two doobies in it shot through his open window in response. Awwrite, Blaine smiled and pulled the switch for the headlights.

Nate pulled away, switching on his lights as he rolled and the other two fell in behind. Ron opened the baggie and fished out a joint, sniffing it before he put it in his lips and pushed in the lighter. Waiting for it to pop out, he looked at the big gaudy old Chrysler in front of them. Fuck. He groaned, when he saw that Nate had dropped the cane thru one of the bullet holes in the trunk of the hulking metal behemoth. You see that shit? He asked Blaine.

He looked at his friend and the only response was a slow shaking of his head. The lighter popped out and he pulled it free, pressing it against the joint he inhaled deeply. Exhaling a small amount of the pungent smoke he saw the light reflect off of the little red fake gem stones that were set in the eyes of the skull atop the cane. They seemed to glare, accusingly at him through the night air. The temperature in the car felt as if it dropped several degrees.

Hey, Bogart. Blaine snapped, jerking him back to reality. Ron hit the joint again and passed it over.

Blaine’s home was actually kind of inconvenient for a clandestine operation like this. More or less situated between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti, there was really no back way out of his small subdivision without first hitting some major roads. Nate was doing pretty good at maintaining a low profile when he suddenly pulled over and shut off his lights. Blaine pulled the wagon in behind him and was killing his lights too as Nate shoved his door open and ran back cussing, Fuckin’ thing ain’t got no gas in it. I gotta get some gas. You got any money?

Oh, yer shittin’ me, right, Blaine said, my wallet’s back at home. Ron, you got some? Ron quickly patted his pockets before realizing that he too had left his wallet back at Blaine’s house on the kitchen counter.

Nate looked back at the big beast in front of the wagon. I wonder what our buddy has in his pockets?

That brought a chuckle from Blaine, Let’s check.

Standing at the back of the car, the levity ebbed from the three of them and they seemed to regress to boyhood, even if only for a moment. There seemed to be a sense of whoever blinks first has to open it. Ron reached out and withdrew the cane from where it stood like a flag staff. This is sick Nate. Where’s the key? He asked.

Oop’s, Nate snickered, and hurried to get it from the ignition where he’d left it . He returned and looked down at the key in his hand , hesitating.

For fucks sake Nate gimmie the fuckin’ key. Ron broke the silence. Nate held out the key and Ron snapped it away. He turned and jammed it into the trunk lock and